Search Results for: International law

BY PHILIP FINE and KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED States is calling for countries to offer up more information on their legal pharmaceutical and bulk chemical industries so as to better catch those who are using them for illegal purposes.

In its comprehensive annual report on worldwide drugs activities, the US State Department places some of the blame for many legal chemicals ending up in the hands of illicit drug manufacturers, on government political structures.…

BY PHILIP FINE

US organic producers are urging legislators to repeal a section of a new

law that waters down the definition of organic meat. The 2003 Omnibus

Appropriations Bill exempts those raising organic livestock from purchasing

organic feed if it costs twice as much as conventionally produced feed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the World Trade Organisation in the midst of key negotiations to update its agriculture agreement, Geneva diplomats are often stressing the raison d’etre of the WTO Doha Development Round, namely that commerce helps the poor.

The idea is that by ripping down bureaucratic hurdles, duties and restrictive quotas for goods that developing countries produce in abundance – such as food – the WTO will provide their entrepreneurs with an opportunity to seize export earnings.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MOVE by European Union (EU) health and consumer affairs Commissioner David Byrne to kick-start preparations to lift the five year de-facto moratorium on genetically modified organism imports into the EU has been blocked by Germany, France, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL team of experts has successfully controlled a newly discovered species of parasitic wasp that was threatening to destroy the Lebanon’s iconic cedar woodlands, descended from Levantine forests probably walked by Jesus Christ. From Biblical times to the Nineteenth Century, much of the steep Mount Lebanon range that towers over the eastern Mediterranean was cloaked in ancient cedars.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
LEADERS of international organisations are lining up to speak at the major textile trade conference being staged by the European Commission in Brussels in May 5-6.

Pascal Lamy, European Union trade commissioner, is to speak on the importance of quota elimination for the strengthening of the multilateral system.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
TOBACCO companies, trade unions and governments have agreed that employment in the tobacco sector “needs to be reviewed in terms of recent economic and social developments.” The three sides, meeting under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva last month (February), accepted that the sector’s jobs in industrialised countries and some developing countries “have either been stagnating or declining, although tobacco production, especially cigarettes, has been increasing due to higher demand worldwide supported by state-of-the-art technology and corporate consolidation.”…

BY PHILIP FINE

FUZZY stuffed animals and puppet-toting uniformed guards could soon find a

permanent place amid all the high-level security at American airports. The

US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has launched a ‘kid-friendly’

pilot programme at Denver International Airport. A triggered metal detector

alarm for a child will now launch screeners at Denver into federally

approved double duty, talking to the children, handing out smiling-face

stickers and entertaining them with hand puppets — all the while making

sure the children are not packing heat.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A TINY wire antenna and a computer chip the size of a piece of glitter will be imbedded into most retail product materials in the next few years, if all goes as

planned by those currently involved in developing a revolutionary tracking system.…

BY PHILIP FINE

Tyres and car engine parts could soon be imbedded with radio frequency identification tags (RFID). International Paper and Canon USA have implemented a pilot project to imbed them into products from a selected range of industries, including the automotive sector.…